


Fall

by WyattShepard



Series: Fallout 4 [3]
Category: Fallout 4
Genre: Violence
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-02-06
Updated: 2020-02-06
Packaged: 2021-02-28 07:09:04
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,399
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22579876
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WyattShepard/pseuds/WyattShepard
Summary: Detailing how my BoS Sentinel-Leslie Thomas-ended up with the church of Atom. Something hadn't felt right when they set off on that mission, and it only went downhill from there.
Series: Fallout 4 [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/812247





	Fall

Fall

**By Wyatt Shepard**

Leslie had never been one for second-guessing herself, especially after having dealt with everything outside the vault. But as she was jostled to the side yet again from the winds outside the vertibird there was a small part of her that wondered if she was doing the right thing. She sighed and stared down at the helmet between her hands, the light recon armor new and absent of damage. She tucked a lock of red hair behind her ear and listened to the rain drum against vertibird’s hull. In the background, she could just make out the Paladins discussing attack strategies and more importantly, making bets on who would have the highest kill count. She breathed in the scent of steel, sweat, and gun oil that coated just about every vertibird before placing the helmet on her head. She undid her harness and moved to stick her head in the cockpit. The lancer piloting the vertibird was probably more than three years younger than her but she would bet money on him being the best lancer in the Brotherhood. At least he was the best in her chapter of the Brotherhood anyways.

“Don’t worry Sentinel we are nearly there. This rain should be letting up soon, so we should have overcast for boots on the ground,” the lancer reported, reaching up to pat her helmet gently. His light-green eyes never looked away from the windshield in front of him as he spoke.

“You know James, anyone else did that I would probably have killed them,” Leslie responded with a sideways grin. The lancer only smirked in response to her sarcastic threat.

“Good thing you didn’t; I’m your ride back,” he shot back with a smile. One of her eyebrows raised.

“They can send me another ‘bird with a different pilot, you know?” Her tone was halfway between serious and playful, but the question only made him laugh.

“With all due respect: there are no other pilots who will put up with you Ma’am,” James responded. The surface of the ocean below them turned from gray-blue waves to the fog-covered rocky terrain that she remembered Far Harbor for. Leslie shrugged her shoulders.

“That’s fair,” she nodded and patted the back of his seat, “there should be a destroyed school about half-a-mile east of the compound. Sit us down there, will you?” He nodded and she ducked out of the cockpit back into the cargo hold.

“Alright ladies cut the chatter,” she said as she joined them. The Paladin that wasn’t on a minigun saluted her, the other two gave respectful nods to her instead.

“We should still have the element of surprise, but just in case we don’t let’s go over the plan for a hot drop,” she started.

They approached the compound quietly from the south, but the power armor was going to hinder stealth regardless. Leslie knew this and so did her squad. So a couple of layers had to be added onto the strategy. She held up her fist to the Paladins following her, signaling them to hold position. They were hidden behind a large boulder, directly in front of what served as the main gate to Acadia. Leslie's Pip-boy beeped twice softly before she shut the timer off. Any second now and the show would begin. She reached down and clicked her M4 into the burst-fire mode.

"Hey! That vertibird is circling back again," shouted one of the men guarding the gate. Leslie smirked as she held up three fingers and began counting down. When she reached zero she swiveled out from behind the boulder and put a three-round burst into each of the two guards.

Chaos erupted.

Leslie dashed to the left and slid into some more bushes as two of the power-armored paladin knights laid down covering fire for her. She heard the Gatling-laser charge up as Viktor opened fire on another pair of guards. She managed to work her way up to the outer wall of Acadia unseen. As she was about to duck into the compound itself several rocket turrets came to life on the wall above her.

 _"What the fuck?! We didn’t have any intel about upgraded turrets,"_ she thought in horror as the launchers swiveled to target her squad. Before she could react, the turrets and part of the wall they were on exploded. She felt the warm downwash of the vertibird’s engines cascade over her as it hovered there for a moment, letting the Vulcan minigun rip through a large metal container and the synths using it for cover.

“I owe you one James,” she said, breathlessly.

“Drinks are on you then,” was the lancer’s reply. The knight on the minigun gave her a thumbs up as if to confirm it.

Leslie rolled her eyes as the aircraft moved away to finish off the remaining turrets and stragglers. She quickly crossed the courtyard and started taking the concrete steps two at a time. Coming to the top of the stairs she found a computer terminal next to a wooden shack. The computer was connected to a huge bundle of cables and was very much a recent addition. Leslie also suspected it was part of the advanced security upgrades that had been installed since she was here last. Slinging the rifle onto her back, her hands flew to the keyboard as she began looking for a way past the firewall.

“Status?” Leslie heard one of her paladins ask over the comms, the sound of laser fire in the background. There were several eternal seconds of furious typing before she finally released the breath she had been holding. This terminal was linked to the new security, including the rocket turrets she had seen earlier.

“Down,” She confirmed, hitting enter on the keyboard. She felt the weight of her M4 lift, followed by the sound of her sling being cut. Glancing back, she felt the butt of her rifle connect with her nose. She blinked away tears as a second blow came to her cheek, her earpiece falling to the concrete.

“I knew something about you didn’t feel right,” Chase snarled, advancing as Leslie stumbled backward. She slipped her foot behind the sentinel’s, sending the other woman sprawling. The fighting continued all around them, seemingly oblivious of the two women.

“I should have done this when I met you, I should have trusted my gut,” The synth shouted, driving her knife into Leslie’s thigh. She cried out in pain but managed to push herself away from Chase, her faded-blue jeans quickly turning red.

“Hard to trust what you don’t have,” Leslie quipped, trying and failing to hide the pain behind wit. The synth hummed to herself as she racked the slide of Leslie’s M4, tossing a round off to the side.

“Really poor choice of last words,” Chase responded, leveling the rifle at her. The vertibird swung around, seeming to have noticed the two of them among the chaos. Chase glanced up at it and barely had enough time to roll out of the way as the knight opened fire, bullets peppering where she had been standing.

 _"This is going to suck,"_ Leslie thought as she took one last deep breath before grabbing the knife and pulling as hard as she could. She grit her teeth through the burning agony that flooded her brain and tried not to think of passing out. The blade came free with a sickening noise, her nerves screaming in protest. Then, she summoned everything she could muster and sent the blade spinning through the air.

The synth barely had time to glance up before the blade embedded itself in her throat. Astonishment flashed across her face as she flinched, letting the M4 fall from her grip. She brought a shaking hand to touch the knife but recoiled as if it had burned her.

“Oh…” Chase choked out.

As the rifle clattered to the concrete Leslie threw herself over it and brought it up to her shoulder after rolling.

“Ad Victoriam Chase,” she said. She squeezed the trigger and put three rounds into the synth’s chest, forcing herself to keep eye contact until Chase fell backward off the platform. Leslie grunted in pain but managed to drag herself over to where her earpiece had fallen and placed it back in her ear.

“Thanks for the save, James,” she said, touching her finger to the earpiece. She watched the vertibird sway off to the right so that the minigun could draw a bead on another target.

“Not needed, Sentinel,” he responded, “and by the way, nice throw.”

She grunted in response and checked her Pip-boy’s status screen. The knife had indeed reached the bone. She spat to the side and began rummaging around in her pack.

“Thomas!” She looked up to see Viktor running up the stairs to her, his power armor painted red to emulate the look of blood spatter. Leslie finally found the stimpack she was searching for and stabbed it into the still bleeding wound.

"Report Vik," she ground out. Leslie hissed through clenched teeth as the healing began to take effect. He hesitated a moment but saluted.

"All hostiles eliminated, at least the ones that engaged us," he said. She nodded and started pushing herself to her feet. When he offered a hand to help her up she shook her head, causing her bangs to fall from the restraint of her helmet. The other two paladins joined them as Leslie got back on her feet and she nodded to them, the numbing agent from the stimpack starting to kick in. Her eyes hardened as she looked between the three paladins. _Her_ paladins.

"Alright, let's take stock of what we have left," she said, making her way down the stairs, "James, bring me the C4 and breaching gear." The three paladins glanced in unison to the simple metal door and shrugged to each other.

"Ma'am do we need C4 for a breach like this," June asked, turning her sky-blue T-45 helmet back to the Sentinel. Leslie smirked to June as she passed.

"Now that wouldn't be any fun," Leslie said. June saluted but shook her head.

"You know why the elder gets so mad sometimes," Viktor commented, watching for any more synths. Saint, the last member of her squad, stepped in front of her to block her advance down the stairs. She bumped into him and crumpled to the concrete.

"What the fuck, Saint," she barked out. He simply pointed down at the leg she was clutching, the skin not-quite healed over from the stimpack yet.

"He is saying you need that leg looked at, Les," June commented as she took the C4 and breaching gear from James.

"Mmm," Saint grunted, bending down and taking his pack off. She looked at the pre-war style medical cross that was carved into his olive-green chest plate for a moment before she noticed him watching her carefully.

"Just get me patched up, I don't want this thing slowing us down," she said, shaking her head. He began wrapping her leg to ensure that the wound didn't reopen before it had healed fully, keeping his attention on her while doing it.

"Hmmm," he growled, tightening the gauze a bit more than he needed too. Leslie hissed through her teeth and gave him a cross look.

"I get it, I'll go easy on it alright," Leslie told him, dropping her sarcastic mask for a brief moment.

"Mmhm," He growled, nodding as he stood up and slung his backpack over his shoulder. This time she accepted the help she was offered and took Saint's hand.

"Alright, I want Saint and June on point," she said, already walking better than she had been. June whistled from below them, a bulletproof, riot-shield in each hand.

"Catch," she said before flinging one of them into the air. Saint reached out and caught it. He glanced over to Leslie and nodded once, growling at her again.

"I said I would go easy, get off my back mom," she said, giving his shoulder a shove towards the door. They stacked up on either side of the door, June taking a moment to place the explosive in the middle of it.

"Vik, give me eyes. Is it trapped," she asked while she worked with the wires. The eyes of Viktor's T-45 helmet started glowing as he studied the door.

"No traps detected on the other side. At least, none on the door," He said, the glow fading.

"Alright Paladins, nice and clean. Slow is steady, steady is fast-" Leslie began, leaving the sentence unfinished. June and Viktor picked it up as she left off.

"Fast is lethal," they cried in unison.

"Hrrrrrrr," Saint growled as his thumb slammed down on the detonator.

The door was reduced to scrap instantly, smoke and debris flying into the hallway. There were no screams or sounds of panic; in fact, Leslie couldn’t hear anything aside from her own breathing. She steeled herself and patted Saint on the shoulder.

“Hrrmmm,” he growled, ducking into the smoke behind his shield, both vanished instantly. Viktor entered behind him with the Gatling-laser, then June and finally Leslie. They crept along carefully, the only sound was the scuffing of their boots and the hydraulics of the power armor.

“Where is everybody? You would think that we would at least attract _some_ attention,” Viktor mumbled as they continued down the hallway; Leslie agreed but kept quiet. They entered a circular room where she remembered traders and synths spending free time, but it was empty as well. June sighed loudly through her headset.

“They must have moved, dug in somewhere that’s easier to defend,” Viktor reasoned. Leslie knew the bottom floor was filled with cover to hide behind and supplies; it made sense.

“Alright, change of plans,” she said, clicking through her pip-boy. June and Viktor looked back at her but Saint stayed on guard.

“You three head down those stairs,” she inclined her head towards the concrete stairway on the right, “These synths have no military training, and since Chase is out of the picture too this should be even easier.” She let a smile slip onto her lips and paused to look at them each in turn.

“One thing I do want to stress is that we can’t leave any stragglers behind,” she said, the smile slipping from her face resembled a robot losing power suddenly.

“The Elder really wants this place erased huh,” June commented, curious as to what kind of threat these runaways posed that would warrant such a response from Maxon.

“It really looks like it,” Leslie mumbled, “Watch each others’ backs while you’re down there, and be careful. There were a bunch of upgrades to the security outside. Something's not right here.”

\----

Leslie crept down the last set of stairs and up to the door, placed her ear to it for a moment and listened. She could make out the muffled sound of two voices on the other side. She sat in the shadows of the concrete stairs and waited. The sound of shouting and gunfire drifted from above her, giving her the signal that her paladins had found the rest of the synth holdouts. She crept forward with practiced stealth, took her helmet off, and pulled a bobby pin out of her hair. She replaced the helmet and began to pick the lock as quietly as she could. She bit down on her lower lip as the tumblers clicked into place and froze. The voices didn’t falter in their conversation, so Leslie slowly stood and stacked up on the door. She took three deep breaths, unclipped a flashbang grenade from her belt, and opened the door a crack. She tossed in the small metal cylinder and slammed it shut again, plugging her ears. When she breached the room she found two figures inside, DiMA and Faraday reeling from the blast. She put a three-round burst into Faraday and turned on DiMA. She just held him in her sights until he regained his perception. His lips curved downward as he realized who the cause of everything was.

“Chase told me not to trust you, said that something wasn’t right when you first showed up here,” he began, shaking his head like a disappointed parent.

“Sorry DiMA, the show’s over now,” she responded, flicking the switch on her rifle to semi-auto. He nodded at her words.

“I suppose it is,” he said solemnly, closing his eyes. The monitors surrounding him suddenly turned red, flashing a warning message. Leslie looked at one of them and growled.

“What did you do, synth,” she snarled at him. He didn’t open his eyes as he responded.

“Activated the nuclear warhead beneath Acadia.”

\----

“Viktor, come in damnit,” Leslie screamed, her left arm holding DiMA’s head close to her chest, the other hand holding her comms open. She was running up the concrete stairs, headed for the exit. Static greeted her, sharp in her ear. She cursed, coming to the top of the stairs and throwing the door open. Outside, James was in the cockpit looking over the instruments when she came bursting from the building. He looked up with a start and climbed out to greet her as she was descending the stairs.

“Heads up,” she called, tossing DiMA’s head with barely enough time for him to catch it, “I am going back in, I can’t get any of them-” Her sentence was cut short by the sound of power armor hydraulics.

“Sorry Sentinel, ran into some trouble,” Viktor shouted as he and June cleared the doorway. Behind them, Saint was still holding his shield as gunfire continued to pepper it. He slowly backed out until he was outside, then turned to jump down to the waiting vertibird. Leslie released the breath she was holding and climbed aboard, the engines kicking dust into the air as they powered up.

“James, get us the fuck out of here,” she yelled over the noise of the gunfire and the vertibird. June clasped Saint’s arm and pulled him up, Leslie and Viktor laying down covering fire with the two mounted mini-guns.

“Grrrh,” Saint howled back at the synths in fury as he leaned out of the vertibird and threw his riot shield like a frisbee. It spun into three of the synths who were starting down the stairs, reducing them to pieces. June cheered at the display as the vertibird finally lifted into the air. The synths below scurried about, unsure of what to do other than continue to shoot.

“That was close,” Viktor commented, buckling his harness.

From the cockpit, James made a choking sound as the vertibird lurched violently to the side, a missle sailing dangerously close to them. Leslie stumbled, trying to keep her balance as they recovered. She reached out for anything to grab a hold of but her fingers closed around air. She fell from the vertibird in what felt to her like slow motion. She hit the ground hard, her head slamming against a stone in the mud. Muddy-water and the pain of impact were all she knew for a couple seconds.

“Cover her, covering fire now,” June yelled out, her desperation clear over Leslie’s radio. She blinked several times to clear her vision and found a synth standing over her, the twin barrels of a sawed-off shotgun leveled on her. The synth holding it couldn’t have been more than 14 years old, and it looked like the spitting image of a young girl. Leslie was pretty sure you couldn’t program fear like she saw in that face. Her hazel eyes met the purple of Leslies.

The thing about fear is that it makes you hesitate; it makes you doubt.

Leslie swung both of her legs around and managed to kick the synth in the back of her knees. The girl cried out in surprise and toppled over, where they started struggling over the shotgun. The Vulcan screamed only a couple meters above her head as the minigun tore through more of the girl’s comrades. Leslie managed to twist the gun around in the struggle and one of them pulled the trigger. The synth girl’s chest exploded, blood and gore covering the Sentinel. They locked eyes again as the light drained from the hazel orbs, and Leslie let the body fall into the mud.

“Thomas we need to go, that timer is running out really quickly,” James said over the radio. The vertibird hovered down so she could clamber aboard, but at the last second had to pull up as more rocket fire came from the synths still pouring out of the inside of the building. Leslie glanced up at the vertibird, back to Acadia, and bit her lip.

“James get that memory unit back to the Prydwen, get another ‘bird and come get me,” she told them, already hearing the rush of protest.

“That’s an order, soldier. I’ll be fine here, now go,” she screamed before turning and sprinting into the fog-covered brush. She saw them gain altitude and turn away from the island just before the foliage blocked them from view.

\----

She ran through the foliage harder than she had ever run before. Harder than when she escaped the vault, harder still than when chasing down Kellog. She tripped over a log stuck in the mud and stumbled, scraping her elbow on a similarly stuck rock. She spat a curse and as she began to stand, noticed cellar doors still intact beside a house very much destroyed. She ground her teeth but forced each step forwards. Of all the courage and strength she had uncovered in herself since leaving the vault, the fear of tight, closed spaces had stuck with her.

“Anything, any cost,” she said, almost like a mantra while she busted the lock, threw aside the chain, and wretched them open. Several skeletons laid on the stairs down, which she shoved aside and slammed the doors closed above her. She tried not to think about how they had died trying to claw their way out of the same place she now shut herself inside. The air was damp and stank of mold, reminding the Sentinel of the gas mask dangling around her neck. She felt the explosion before she heard it, several of the glass jars of her makeshift shelter falling from their shelves to shatter on the floor.

 _“How many of these am I going to live through in my lifetime,”_ she thought with a forced chuckle as she strapped the gas mask over her nose and mouth. The shoddy attempt at humor did nothing to calm her heart that was still drumming against her ribs. She hated having

She didn’t know how long she waited, down in that poor excuse for a vault. It could very well become her tomb, a thought which she regretted having as soon as it floated through her head. This far out she doubted she could pick up any kind of signal on her pip-boy’s radio. Then, she actually slapped herself.

 _“The pip-boy,”_ she thought suddenly, _“Why isn’t the Geiger counter going off?”_

Gingerly, she lifted the doors to the cellar and poked her head up. Everything seemed normal, but the fog is what caught her eye.

“It’s still there,” She whispered, like any more volume would set the explosion off again, “the fog hasn’t been displaced at all…” She examined her pip-boy again to find the Geiger counter unchanged. Frowning, she stuck her arm into the fog. The device on her wrist started ticking rapidly, deepening her frown. Leslie fully pushed out of the cellar and looked skyward; confirming her suspicion was a sky lacking the distinct mushroom cloud produced from a nuclear explosion. She huffed a laugh and fell out of the cellar, embracing the cold mud that she found in a fit of nerve-driven laughter. The sound of gunfire and feeling of pain shooting up her thigh interrupted the celebration.

 _“Damnit, I didn’t check the house,”_ she thought, reaching for her M4. Someone kicked the back of her head, knocking her back into the mud.

“Careful, I want her alive. It’s not fun unless they struggle a little,” said a voice to her right; or what should have been her right considering her head was spinning and she wasn’t really sure. Two men fell onto her hands, holding them down as a third stepped into view. His pants were already around his ankles, sending fear up her spine. Trappers. She waited until he got close enough and kicked him in the balls; then something hit the back of her head again. She struggled to hold onto her senses, but despite her efforts gave into the cold arms of unconsciousness.

\----

When she managed to open her eyes she found herself looking up at a rusty-ceiling. Strange, she didn’t remember a roof over the house. Her memories came flooding back to her in a rush, so fast it almost hurt. She sat bold upright and almost vomited from the vertigo. Groaning, she managed to tumble off the bed and onto the rusted-metal floor.

“Don’t move too quickly,” a woman said, crossing the room quickly to help her back up. Leslie’s instincts to fight were put on hold for a moment as she allowed the stranger to help her into a sitting position.

“Where-Where am I? The Trappers,” she trailed off, gazing into the woman’s eyes quizzically. They were rimmed with black skin, and the rest of her face was hidden behind a surgeon's mask.

“They were returned to Atom,” she said, “I am the Architect and you are in the Nucleus. Atom has marked you for something great, young one.” She handed Leslie a bottle of water, and turned back around to face one of the other beds.

“What do you mean, ‘marked’? Are you the Children of Atom,” she asked, drinking the water happily, too thirsty to notice the burn it left going down her throat.

“You should speak with the High-Confessor. He wanted to explain everything to you as soon as you awoke,” she said glancing back over her shoulder. Leslie glanced around once the Architect had turned away from her again.

“I want my gear back first,” she tried weakly.

“In due time, young one,” she responded, without turning away from the injured patient she was working on.

“Fine,” Leslie pouted, stepping out to find the High-Confessor.

\----


End file.
